The present invention relates to an operation control system capable of analyzing, based on the driving data by vehicle and by driver thereof recorded in a recording medium, such as a memory card, the driving tendency of the driver and correlation between the driving tendency and the fuel consumption tendency, traffic accident, driver""s fatigue, and so forth. More specifically, the present invention relates to a driving tendency analysis method that permits risk management associated with vehicle driving.
When a traffic accident occurs, it is difficult for the third party other than person(s) involved in the accident to analyze its cause or situation in an ex post facto way. Normally, such analysis is made based on on-site circumstantial evidences and testimonies of the driver(s) and eyewitnesses. However, analysis of this type is, in large part, intuitive and generic in nature, and thus lacks accuracy. Thus, attempts have recently been made to reconstruct an accident situation by recording into a data recorder the data indicative of the vehicle""s behavior and driving condition and using a computer unit to analyze this recorded data when an accident occurs. This data recorder has behavior sensors, such as angular velocity meter and accelerometer; an input device for inputting driving pulses, etc. from the speedometer and vehicle instrumentation; a nonvolatile memory; and its recording controller. The data measured by each sensor is recorded in the memory for a predetermined period of time, as updated as appropriate. When a traffic accident happens, the recorded data is read from the memory of this data recorder and analyzed. For example, the driving scene traced back for a certain period of time since the vehicle stopped after the accident is reconstructed by image processing and other operations performed by the computer. This objectively clarifies the situation at the time of the accident, so that causes of the accident are properly ascertained.
However, the data recorder was conventionally used for very limited purposes of reconstructing a situation of an accident if a traffic accident occurs. The current system that analyzes the data recorded in the data recorder, in most cases, performs analysis in fragments, based on a limited set of items, such as driving speed, acceleration and deceleration, without accounting for an actual accident situation. Thus, no consideration is given to comprehensive understanding of the driving tendency and its use in risk management for vehicle driving, and it is difficult to make them widely available for general drivers.
In companies and organizations, there may be cases where employees, or drivers, are responsible for creating a daily report that records the action history (Journal) from the driving start time to the driving end time in detail in order to daily manage the driving condition of the company-owned cars and verify the fuel consumption tendency of the company-owned cars. Normally, such daily reports are created in paper-based documents. The employees fill out a predefined form, with the driving interruption place (destination) and its time, fact of fuel replenishment, driving distance, and so forth. The information entered into the daily report is aggregated at predetermined intervals, and used as vehicle operation control information. However, it is burdensome to fill out the daily report form every day, and as the number of vehicles and drivers increases, the burden required to aggregate the daily reports also increases. Thus, there is a need for the development of technology that can make form fill-out and aggregation processes less burdensome, while securing useful information regarding vehicle operation.
Incidentally, when a driver drives a car, differences appear in features of behavior depending on the technique, personality, and habit of the driver, even for the same vehicle. Behavior features include, among other things, accelerating operation during driving, handling operation during turning, acceleration during stopping, and starting acceleration. Thus, traffic accidents could be prevented from happening, if the driver himself or the manager in the company objectively knows beforehand whether the individual driver has a safe driving tendency or a dangerous driving tendency that is likely to result in an accident.
Especially, for the manager in the company, by utilizing the information that is unknown from the daily report, risk management associated with vehicle operation could be achieved properly. Additionally, the correlation between the driving tendency and fuel consumption tendency, which may be intuitively understood but is not corroborated, may be ascertained beforehand. Based on this correlation, measures may be taken to minimize the amount of fuel consumption, thereby saving the vehicle operation cost.
Furthermore, if the data recorder may be utilized in the afore-mentioned applications, the data recorder and system that uses it are expected to find wider use in a variety of applications.
A main purpose of the present invention is to provide an operation control system capable of objectively analyzing the driving tendency of a vehicle on a driver-by-driver basis and constituent apparatus thereof.
The present invention provides: a data recorder mounted onboard a vehicle; an operation control assisting apparatus, in response to data recorded by the data recorder, for generating decision information indicative of driving tendency for each driver; a recording medium used to implement the operation control assisting apparatus in a computer; and an operation control system comprised thereof.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a data recorder comprising: a media accommodating mechanism for detachably accommodating a recording medium; a sensor unit for measuring, in chronological order, driving speed, three-dimensional angular velocity, and longitudinal/lateral acceleration of a vehicle; and a recorder unit for recording the measurement data obtained from the sensor unit and processed data thereof in the recording medium accommodated in said medium accommodating mechanism, wherein said recorder unit, upon recognizing that a behavior occurs when a variation range of said measurement data exceeds a predetermined threshold, records the measurement data at a time of behavior occurrence and for a predetermined time before and after that time of behavior occurrence; records, according to changes in the driving condition, time and location information at a time of such changes; updates an absolute maximum value when an absolute maximum value of new measurement data exceeds that of already recorded measurement data; and calculates an average value of said measurement data whenever a predetermined period has elapsed, and records it together with absolute maximum and absolute minimum values within said predetermined period.
Said recorder unit may be configured so that if said vehicle has stopped for more than a certain period of time, the measurement data during stopping is recorded at intervals that are several bit multiples of the measurement data during driving.
Said recording medium is a card-like recording medium that stores data for identifying a vehicle and its driver, and operation purpose information including information indicative of whether for business or private purposes and/or whether for toll-free road or toll highway, which is both read when reading the measurement data recorded, and may configured so that it prompts a predetermined data processing means for different styles of data processing according to said operation purpose information, regardless of the same behavior features for the same vehicle.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an operation control assisting apparatus, which comprises: a data reading means for reading recorded data from a recording medium where measurement data indicative of features of behavior of a vehicle is recorded as linked to data indicative of occurrence date/time and occurrence place of the behavior; a criteria setting means for setting data criteria indicative of predetermined behavior features; and a data processing means for extracting said recorded data read by said data reading means that match said set data criteria, classifying them according to behavior features, and aggregating the classified data per a predetermined period, said data processing means also replacing said occurrence place data linked to the aggregated data with geographical name data, and outputting said aggregated data in a visually-recognizable manner for use in operation control of said vehicle and driver thereof.
Said criteria setting means may permit entering into an embedded area of a guidance displayed on a predetermined setup screen, criteria patterns for identifying behavior features of the vehicle, including dangerous behaviors. Said criteria setting means may also permit entering into an embedded area of a guidance displayed on a predetermined setup screen, criteria patterns for identifying driving habits.
Said data processing means may compare said recorded data to said data criteria indicative of features of driving interruptions, thereby identifying the time and place of occurrence of the driving interruptions and generating, in chronological order, geographical name data corresponding to the place of the driving interruptions identified.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an operation control assisting apparatus comprising: a data reading means for reading measurement data from a recording medium where measurement data indicative of behavior features of a vehicle, including its driving speed, is recorded; and a data processing means for classifying said measurement data read by said data reading means into a plurality of driving speed ranges and detecting the behavior of said vehicle in each of the speed ranges according to the classified measurement data, said data processing means also generating judgment information for judging the driving tendency of a driver of the vehicle in an ex post facto way based on the results of the detection, so that the judgment information is outputted in a visually-recognizable manner and used for operation control of said vehicle and the driver thereof.
Said data processing means may perform at least one of correlation analysis and multivariate analysis between dissimilar measurement data, thereby generating said judgment information.
One of said measurement data to be processed may be kinetic acceleration data in a predetermined direction of said vehicle.
Said data processing means may also compare statistical values of the classified data about the recorded data for a plurality of drivers to similar data of a target driver to be analyzed, thereby generating said judgment information regarding said target driver.
Said data processing means may compare classified data about a specific reference driver exhibiting a specific driving tendency to similar data about a target driver to be analyzed, thereby generating said judgment information regarding said target driver. Said reference driver may then be a driver exhibiting relatively less data indicative of features of dangerous behavior.
Said data processing means may also include a fuel consumption tendency analysis module that creates data indicative of driving efficiency based on said judgment data for individual drivers and quantitatively identify fuel consumption tendencies of those drivers. Said fuel consumption tendency analysis module may then create data indicative of said efficiency by using, as variables, driving tendency elements of a driver including idling time of the vehicle and its driving speed and acceleration variability derived by analyzing said behavior features.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an operation control system having a data recorder and an operation control assisting apparatus, wherein said data recorder comprises: a media accommodating mechanism for detachably accommodating a recording medium; a sensor unit for measuring, in chronological order, driving speed, three-dimensional angular velocity, and longitudinal/lateral acceleration of a vehicle; and a recorder unit for recording the measurement data obtained from the sensor unit and processed data thereof in the recording medium accommodated in said medium accommodating mechanism, wherein said recorder unit, upon recognizing that a behavior occurs when a variation range of said measurement data exceeds a predetermined threshold, records the measurement data at a time of behavior occurrence and for a predetermined time before and after that time of behavior occurrence; records, according to changes in the driving condition, time and location information at a time of such changes; updates an absolute maximum value when an absolute maximum value of new measurement data exceeds that of already recorded measurement data; and calculates an average value of said measurement data whenever a predetermined period has elapsed, and records it together with absolute maximum and minimum values within said predetermined period; and wherein said operation control assisting apparatus comprises: a data reading means for reading recorded data from a recording medium where measurement data indicative of features of behavior of a vehicle is recorded as linked to data indicative of occurrence date/time and occurrence place of the behavior; a criteria setting means for setting data criteria indicative of predetermined behavior features; a first data processing means for extracting said recorded data read by said data reading means that match said set data criteria, classifying them according to behavior features, and aggregating the classified data per a predetermined period, said first data processing means also replacing said occurrence place data linked to the aggregated data with geographical name data; and a second data processing means generating judgment information indicative of driving tendency of the driver based on the measurement data indicative of behavior features of the vehicle including its driving speed.
The operation control system may further comprises: an image data storage means for storing image data representing scenes around said vehicle; and an image processing means for reading, upon input of a time of occurrence of a desired behavior feature, said scene image data at said time of occurrence, thereby embodying the scene image.
It may also have an image processing means for visualizing a driving route of said vehicle by identifying at least driving interruption and an place of occurrence thereof from the measurement data recorded by said data recorder and comprehensively displaying on a predetermined map image a driving history including the place of driving interruption of the vehicle equipped with said data recorder.
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer-readable recording medium where digital information is stored for causing a computer unit to execute the steps of: reading recorded data from a recording medium where measurement data indicative of features of behavior of a vehicle is recorded as linked to data indicative of occurrence date/time and occurrence place of the behavior; setting data criteria indicative of predetermined behavior features; extracting said recorded data read that match said set data criteria and classifying them according to behavior features; aggregating the classified data per a predetermined period; replacing said occurrence place data lined to the aggregated data with geographical name data; and outputting the aggregated data in a visually-recognizable manner.
According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer-readable recording media where digital information is stored for causing a computer unit to execute the steps of: reading recorded data from a recording medium where measurement data indicative of features of behavior of a vehicle including its driving speed is recorded; classifying said recorded data read according a plurality of driving speed ranges; detecting the behavior of said vehicle in each speed range based on the classified measurement data; creating judgment information for judging the driving tendency of a driver of said vehicle in an ex post facto way based on the results of the detection; and outputting the judgment information in a visually-recognizable manner.